With PSM´s Pionierpanzer conversion inbound. I start my build review. The Pionierpanzer M48 was a recycling of surplus M48 A2 CG MBT used with Bundeswehr Heimatschutz units.
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A fellow student at university commanded one of these in a Gebirgs Panzerpionier unit (early 1980’ties), he stated that his tank still had the 90mm gun locked down into the 6 o’clock position.
Cheers
Christopher
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I am waiting for a Tankograd booklet on the M48 MBT family. I hope this will shed a light the Pionierpanzer US.
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Hello!
That’s an interesting subject!
Why were they so deliberate about this tank not having any armament on it?
Good luck with your build!
Beste Grüße!
Paweł
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I would hazard a guess that all the tank armament was removed to make room for the immense load of engineer’s equipment.
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I believe it was all about the dozer introduced mid late 70’ties, so initially they didn’t remove the gun and MG in the commander’s cupola. That happened around mid 80’ties and served till 90’ties.
It’s was initially called “Räumpanzer” the later, without the gun “Pioneerpanzer”
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I suspect to prevent unit commanders from trying to make the crew use it as an MBT.
Dutch Centurion dozer tanks were similar in their later version: once the army’s stocks of 20-pounder ammo ran out, the gun was removed and the turret was fixed in the 6 o’clock position — rather than replacing the gun by a 105 mm as was used in all other Dutch Centurions by that time.
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Sounds like a valid reason. Unit commanders can get all kinds of silly ideas in their heads.
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It’s one of the things the crews of Archer SP guns in 1944–’45 liked about their vehicle: because the gun pointed rearward over the engine deck, infantry commanders would not think their vehicle was a tank, and so didn’t come rushing to them to tell them to do tank-things — which they did frequently do with M10 crews.
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I was reminded of the antitank gun mounted on the rear of the Raupenschlepper Ost to make
the gun more mobile which triggered some commanders into trying to use it as a StuG …
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Well Pawel … congratulation on your first encounter with the German Military Procurement system!
Attaching the dozer was a quick, stop gap solution in the 70’ties just a Räumpanzer clearing the way and substituting the flow of the incoming Leopard 1 Pioneerpanzer.
Later came the KWS = Kampf Wert Steigerung with a sophisticated (cunning) plan and funding turning it into the “Pioneerpanzer” category.
Removing the gun etc. and/or adding things on a factory standard level.
Then, later removed from frontline units down to the reserves providing those units with some engineering capabilities without wasting good Leo 1s on them.
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To correct you, Räumpanzer were attached to Kompanieführungstrupps as dozer tanks like in the US Army. Pionier (Engineer) tanks were rebuild MBT´s w/o main gun and co-ax m.g. for the Corps of Engineers to supplement the Pionierpanzer Leopard.
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Generally you might be correct for Pz. Companies … maybe not so much with a Pz.Pioneer Company.
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Postman finally delivered the Pioinierpanzer conversion set. A fine mixture of resin, PE, cables and 3D print parts.
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onstructions starts with cutting the kit hull. Unfortunatly, PSM gives only vague instruction WERE to cut. PSM instructions are unclear in some areas. So I cut too much and it ended up in a massive filling and sanding orgy.
Fit of the turret parts is better.
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I found this post quite by accident. I am currently attempting to research the M 48 Raumpanzers/Pionierpanzers for an article. Would you happen to know any good sources of information on these vehicles? There really isn’t much out there that isn’t already covered in Tankograd. Good luck with the build.
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Welcome aboard Mark.
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